


The Artist

by wheel_pen



Series: Loose Gems [3]
Category: Lie to Me (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Nicobar, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 22:04:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3265991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a fictional country where slavery is legal, an eccentric artist finds a muse in a young slave girl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored; that’s just how I do things.
> 
> Inherent in the idea of slavery are dubious consent, unhealthy relationships, and violence.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

            Gillian was a good girl. She didn’t give her caretakers any trouble. She was never cause for headaches for the management, unlike some of the others her age. She was never caught back in the slave quarters, which she was too young for, or in the kitchens or the swimming pool, unless of course it was her designated swimming time. And she was certainly never caught sneaking out into the lobby, among the distinguished guests who frequented the hotel, because she knew she wasn’t supposed to be there. And she was a good girl who did what she was told.

            Somehow, though, even good girls occasionally managed to get into trouble, even when they had good intentions. _Especially_ when they had good intentions.

            Evelyn had forgotten to change the clocks, that was the thing. The time change occurred in the middle of the night tonight, and management expected that all the clocks would be correct when the guests woke up in the morning—but of course they couldn’t be changed until all the guests, more or less, had gone to bed the night before. So Evelyn was supposed to get up at, or stay up until, about two in the morning and then go around all the hotel’s public spaces changing the clocks. Simple enough. For an android who never got tired, perhaps. But Evelyn had been on her feet all day, since early that morning, and when she finally retired late that night, she had forgotten to change the clocks. She was sleeping so soundly that even the alarm she’d set to wake herself didn’t do the trick, though it woke Gillian easily enough. The girl had turned off the alarm before it could wake anyone else and looked down at the exhausted elderly woman she considered a kind of grandmother—not her biological grandmother, of course, she didn’t think that person was still alive—and decided that, as a good girl, she would just go and change the clocks _for_ her.

            Of course, _technically_ , it was wrong. But, not _very_ wrong. The point of changing the clocks at two in the morning was that almost all of the guests would be in their rooms, and any who were still awake would probably be out on the town. Anyway, changing the clocks didn’t take very long; she would be in and out of the pool room, the gym, the restaurants, the lounges, and so forth in less than a minute each. Probably the hotel employees on duty at this late hour wouldn’t even look at her. The cleaning staff prided themselves on being like little mice, little elves, who crept about unnoticed, making things better. Gillian had learned a lot from them.

            So, with a mixture of pride, fear, and a tinge of delicious freedom, Gillian slipped from the staff sleeping quarters and began to pad about the luxurious hotel in the middle of the night. All the lights had been dimmed, but it was still easy enough to see, and hauntingly quiet. Except for the occasional noises coming from behind the closed guest room doors, which indicated that not _everyone_ was actually asleep at two in the morning. However, the rooms were quite well-insulated, so the only reason Gillian was able to hear such noises was because the rest of the place _was_ so quiet.

            She went through the pool, the gym, the restaurants, the lobby, all the time garnering barely more than a half-blind glance from whoever was on duty. They were all too busy catching up on paperwork and putting their records in order to pay much mind to her, and then she was gone before they could even look up a second time. No one would ever realize Evelyn hadn’t done it—and, should they be asked later, they would probably even think they _did_ remember seeing the older woman who always attended to such things.

            Only the half-dozen lounges on the third floor were left and Gillian ducked into the first one, a garish Eastern-inspired room of aggressive red walls and black furniture, stuffed with elaborate screens and ornately-carved furniture. Well, some people felt it was exotic and sophisticated, and the hotel wanted to cater to every taste it could. Disciplined as a good girl should be, Gillian avoided the distraction of the furniture she rarely saw and headed straight for the clock above the mantle. It was too high for her to reach, naturally, so she tested the strength of a nearby red-and-black chair—not that she was a very weighty girl, but you could never tell when a piece was meant more for decoration than function—then dragged it over and clambered up. She had positioned the chair just a bit wrong, however, and soon found herself balancing precariously on one foot, arms stretching up to reach the clock. Just another half inch…

            “Stop right there.”

            The words were spoken quietly, but coming from the midst of a silent room Gillian had thought to be empty, they might as well have been a shout. It was mainly luck that she didn’t jerk and topple out of the chair right then, though the balance she’d been taught in dance lessons probably helped, too.

            And because Gillian was accustomed to taking orders she did not, in fact, move, at least not very much. Still on one foot, arms extended, she turned her head slightly to search for the mysterious speaker. He was curled up on a chaise off to the side, a sketchpad balanced on his knee, pencil working furiously over the paper as his eyes flickered up and down between Gillian and the drawing. He was not terribly old, though older than her, and she saw at once that his suit was expensive—well, he had to have money, if he was a guest in this hotel. And he wouldn’t be hanging about the third-floor lounge at two in the morning if he weren’t a guest.

            Well, he didn’t seem threatening, but he had clearly _noticed_ her, and he might easily call the management if she displeased him. Gillian decided her goal should be to escape his presence as soon as possible, without raising alarm. Most of the clocks had been changed—she would just leave a note for Evelyn so the woman could fix the ones in the lounges as soon as she started her shift in the morning.

            “I’m so sorry to disturb you, sir,” Gillian began politely. “I didn’t realize there was anyone in here.” He made a noise of acknowledgement but said nothing. “Well, I really must be going—“

            “Don’t move.”

            She hadn’t yet, but she certainly couldn’t _not move_ and leave the room at the same time. “I just came in to change the clock, you see, but I’ll just come back at another time—“

            “Turn back to the wall.”

            She did so. “May I ask why, sir?” Perhaps it was better to humor him.

            “Because I’m drawing your profile, that’s why,” he replied shortly. “It would help if you didn’t speak.” So she didn’t speak. Instead she thought about how disturbing it had been when she _was_ facing him, when she could see his eyes burning as he looked briefly up at her over and over, looked at her but only as one would a tree or piece of furniture, without a thought given to the soul behind the object one looked at. Sometimes, when she was observing the interaction of the slaves and the customers in the lounges from a safe hiding place, she saw the same kind of look—the customers perusing the slaves as merchandise, not people. Well, that was what they were, at that point and in that place—merchandise, for temporary use.

            No, perhaps that hadn’t been exactly the way he was looking at her, she decided, her eyes unfocusing as she faced the clock that had necessitated this trouble. Maybe it was more like she was a bug under a microscope, a beautiful horse in a show—there was an element of fascination to it, not just the greed she usually associated with the customers. It was still somewhat unnerving, however.

            “You can take a break now if you want,” he declared dismissively, and when Gillian looked over at him he was staring pensively at the drawing he’d made, still scribbling here and there but without referencing her.

            Quietly she climbed down from the chair and moved it back to its original position around a low coffee table. “I’m very sorry to have disturbed you, sir,” she told him politely with a little curtsy, and then she headed swiftly for the door.

            “Where do you think you’re going? Get back here,” he snapped peevishly.

            “I’m so sorry, sir,” Gillian said, hovering near her escape, “but I really must be going now.”

            “I’m not finished with you,” he replied, as if he were speaking to a particularly stupid child. “Put the chair back and climb up on it again.” Well, Gillian _hadn’t_ been taught to defy the customers, but she hesitated, uncertain about what to do. When she didn’t immediately start following his orders, the man looked up at her in exasperation. “Don’t worry,” he said in a patronizing way. “I’ll make sure I pay for your time later. Now get to it.”

            So Gillian dragged the chair back over to the mantle and climbed up on it again, trying to recreate her previous pose. It didn’t seem like so much to ask, really, and then he’d be done drawing her and she could leave—

            “Your left arm’s half an inch too high,” he criticized.

            “Oh, I’m sorry, sir, I thought you wanted me in the same position as before,” Gillian apologized. She didn’t know a lot about art, but it seemed sensible that she had to stand in exactly the same pose for the same picture.

            “I _do_ ,” he agreed meanly. “So move your left arm down half an inch.”

            “I think it was here before, sir,” Gillian ventured tentatively.

            “Are you being paid to think? No. Move your arm.” Well, she wasn’t being paid at all, but she moved her arm as he instructed. What did she know about art, anyway? She’d been taught dancing to help her move more gracefully, and other subjects as required by law, but special interest had never been paid to creative endeavors like art or music. They weren’t really considered necessarily for her role in life, after all, unless she decided to make her ‘image’ that of someone highly sophisticated and cultured. The artist made a noise of frustration suddenly and she risked a glance over at him to see him frowning at the sketchpad. Finally he sighed. “Move your left arm up half an inch,” he decided. Which was exactly where Gillian had had it originally. Fortunately she wasn’t much of a gloater.

            “Alright, you can get down now,” he said after a few more minutes.

            Gillian tried again to get away. “Well, sir, I really—“

            “This is getting a bit tiresome, alright?” he interrupted, flipping to a new page in his book. “Sit down on that chair and face me. And don’t talk.” So she sat down on the indicated chair, which was still well out of arm’s reach. She had heard artists were often eccentric, after all, and perhaps once he’d finished this _next_ drawing he’d send her on her way. It was rather awkward, staring straight at him while he watched her, that curiously detached look in his eyes again. He growled whenever she looked away from him, so obviously _he_ didn’t mind being stared at. Gillian noted that his eyes were green, and that his hair and close-cropped beard were a golden color that glinted red in the soft light. She wondered if the beard made him look older or younger than he really was—beards could go either way, really. “Stop thinking,” he advised abruptly. “It’s messing up your expression.”

            He was apparently a very fast artist, as after a few minutes his pencil slowed over the paper and he began to stare more at the drawing than at Gillian, as if assessing its quality. Then he flipped to a new page. “Alright, now take your shirt off,” he told her casually.

            Well, this was _really_ too much. Gillian goggled at him in shock for a moment, then exclaimed, “I can’t do that!”

            The man sighed and rubbed his eyes wearily, as if he were saddled with the heaviest burden of all, a recalcitrant model. “I’m sure your little modesty routine is very effective with the customers who want to pretend you’re still a virgin,” he commented acidly, and Gillian’s eyes widened. “But we’re both professionals here. If it’s permission from the management you’re worried about, I promise, I’m not going to lay a hand on you. I’m not even going to leave this couch. And I’ll sort the payment out later. So just take off your shirt and stop giving me trouble.”

            Gillian actually thought about doing it—for half a second. But his request was far enough over the line that she absolutely _knew_ she shouldn’t—even if she got into trouble for being out of bed at this hour, it would be nothing compared to the trouble she’d be in if she were caught half-naked with him. The trouble they’d _both_ be in.

            “What are you waiting for?” he snapped impatiently, pencil poised over the fresh sheet of paper.

            Gillian stood slowly, uncertainly. “I’m very sorry, sir, but I think there’s been some kind of—“

            “Bloody h—l!” he exclaimed, exasperated. “ _What_ is wrong with you? You’ll f—k strangers for money but you can’t even take off your shirt for a drawing?” And then he kicked over the coffee table that stood in front of the couch.

            The crash in the quiet room startled Gillian into action and she finally fled, heart pounding, sprinting for the stairwell. She heard him following her, but not very closely; still, she didn’t dare stop and look back until she had reach the safety of the servants’ quarters. Of course he hadn’t come that far. But even as she crawled back into her cot, Gillian feared she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep—she was too worried about what might happen in the morning.

 **

            Winston had barely settled into his office the next morning when his secretary entered, trailed closely by a man Winston recognized as an important guest. “Mr. Wayland to see you,” his secretary said, an apologetic expression on her face.

            Winston, who had not yet sat down, shook his visitor’s hand politely and nodded his acceptance to his secretary. “Is there something I can do for you, Mr. Wayland?”

            “Obviously,” the man answered abruptly. “I’m staying here with my aunt—Delphia Stanhope?” Winston nodded quickly, used to the name-dropping frequently employed by guests who had trailed their more famous friends and relatives to his hotel. “I met one of your girls last night and I want to see her again,” Wayland went on brusquely.

            “Of course, that’s what our girls are here for,” Winston agreed smoothly, indicating the chair in front of his desk. Wayland sat, but ungraciously, as though he felt the act was just a waste of time. “What was the young lady’s name?”

            “She ran off before telling me,” Wayland admitted. “Bit of an attitude problem, actually, but I only want to draw her, not have a conversation. I’m an artist,” he added, pulling a sheet of paper from the sketchbook on his lap. “This is her.”

            Winston took the paper with some bemusement; no one had mentioned anything to him about a slave posing for an artist. Then he registered the face on the paper he’d been handed and his eyes widened.

            “Not such a bad drawing you can’t recognize her, then?” Wayland observed dryly.

            “When did you say you met her?” Winston asked slowly, the possibilities—and potential problems—tumbling through his brain.

            “Last night, about two-thirty in the morning, in that garish red lounge of yours,” Wayland replied impatiently. Clearly he felt these details were not important. “Look, don’t worry, I’ll pay for her time I took then, it was only about half an hour. But I really _must_ see her again.”

            Pasting a smile on his face, Winston looked up at his guest. “We will definitely do all we can to arrange things to your liking, Mr. Wayland,” he promised, his tone strong and his words vague. “Do you mind if I keep this a little bit longer?” he asked, referring to the drawing.

            “Sure. But I want it back, in good condition,” Wayland warned.

            “Of course! I will look into this matter right away, and contact you as soon as possible.” Wayland rolled his eyes as if he didn’t see how it could be that complicated or time-consuming, but he left without protest. As soon as he heard the outer door shut behind him, Winston buzzed his secretary. “Tell Johnston I want to see him right away.”

 **

            Gillian was in the middle of her math lesson when there was a small buzz of activity out in the hall. The manager of the hotel certainly didn’t show up in the servants’ quarters very often, and while the other youngsters giggled and speculated amongst themselves while their teacher was distracted, Gillian felt her heart turn to ice. She was about to get into a _lot_ of trouble. She was so certain of this that when the teacher turned back to summon Gillian, the woman didn’t even need to get her attention—Gillian was staring at the small knot of people already, her guilt clearly evident on her face. Mr. Johnston, the servants’ supervisor, waved her over and Gillian left her seat with fear weighing down her steps.

            Mr. Johnston gave the teacher a look and the woman went back into the classroom, shutting the door behind them and leaving the three in the relative privacy of the hall. Gillian had met Mr. Johnston many times before, of course, but Mr. Winston was someone she only knew by sight. Their expressions had started out frighteningly stern, but they softened somewhat when they saw the remorse and anxiety on Gillian’s face.

            “Gillian, this is Mr. Winston, the hotel manager,” Mr. Johnston introduced unnecessarily. Gillian nodded—not the most courteous response, but she didn’t trust herself to speak. “A guest came to him with an unusual story this morning. Do you know anything about this drawing?” He presented what must have been the portrait the eccentric artist created of her the night before.

            Gillian promptly burst into tears. “I just wanted to change the clocks!” she sobbed. It wasn’t melodrama, she just didn’t have any experience in dealing with situations of this magnitude. Why, she could be— _sold_ for this. Sold into some kind of horrible job where she would be beaten and have to sleep in a cell with rats scuttling across the floor! In that brief moment it was worst thing her adolescent mind could conjure up. “I just wanted to change the clock in the lounge! I didn’t even know he was there! And then he wanted to draw me and I didn’t know what to do! I’m so sorry!”

            Winston seemed slightly overwhelmed by this display, but Johnston was more used to dealing with the children and teenagers in the servants’ quarters. “It’s alright, Gillian, just try to calm down,” he advised soothingly. She tried. “Now, was this guest an artist named Mr. Wayland?”

            “I don’t know,” Gillian sniffed. “He has blond hair and a beard and-and green eyes.” It was all the description she could come up with in the moment.

            Johnston glanced at Winston, who nodded. The supervisor put his hand on the girl’s shoulder and looked her straight in the eye. “Now, Gillian, this is very important,” he began firmly. “Did Mr. Wayland do anything that was inappropriate?”

            She thought back. “Well… he knocked over a table,” she suggested.

            That didn’t seem to be what they had in mind. “Did he touch you, or ask you to touch him?” Winston clarified, taking over the questioning.

            “Oh. No,” she replied, shaking her head. “Oh, but he wanted me to take off my shirt,” she went on. “So he could draw me. But I didn’t! That’s when I finally ran away. Is he very angry at me?” she asked in a small voice.

            “I don’t think anyone’s angry at you, Gillian,” Johnston told her, after exchanging a look with Winston. “Although,” he added sternly for good measure, “you know you shouldn’t have been out of bed at that hour, and in the lounges.”

            “Yes, I know,” she assured him miserably.

            Johnston straightened up and looked at his employer. “Well, I don’t see anything wrong with letting him draw her,” Winston began, more to the other man than to Gillian. “Our minors have participated in ad campaigns and art projects before.”

            “But of course she should be chaperoned,” Johnston added. “Any nudity or sexual activity would be illegal, of course.”

            “Of course,” Winston agreed. The fines and penalties for such violations were quite severe, and his wasn’t the sort of ‘edgy’ hotel willing to risk them. “I’m sure you can find a suitable chaperone—one of the older servants, perhaps?”

            “Indeed,” Johnston nodded. “Perhaps we should also set some kind of time limit—twelve hours a day only, like the regular slave rental.”

            Winston seemed to feel this was a good idea. Finally he turned back to Gillian. “Well, young lady, I guess you’re going to get out of school for a few hours!” he told her cheerfully. “You won’t mind posing for Mr. Wayland’s drawings, will you, if you’re chaperoned and he doesn’t ask for anything inappropriate?”

            Gillian had the feeling she couldn’t object, so she was a good girl and nodded. “I-I guess that would be alright.”

            “Good, good,” Winston praised her. “Well, let’s just make the arrangements, shall we?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few years later...

            Cal seemed to find eating on the restaurant's outdoor patio a novel experience. Gillian agreed, at least in the sense of _new_ or _unusual_ , but without the 'charming' portion usually appended to the connotation. There was a reason people in this country—those who could afford to, anyway—stayed indoors, in the cool, dry, conditioned air, with no insects (like the one she flicked away from her plate) and no random strangers making noise or passing by too close for her comfort (like the group of dirty, suspicious-looking children across the street). Cal looked over at her expression and smirked before he took a sip of beer. "You are such a snob," he accused, quite amused.

            The judgment was deeply ironic, coming from him, of course, but Gillian didn't feel like calling him on it; she was _actually_ irritated by her current surroundings, which meant that her attempts to _pretend_ irritation would come off wrong and then Cal, in turn, would be irritated. And that wouldn't be helpful to anyone. Her _lack_ of pretending irritation would probably clue him in anyway, but with less confrontation—always preferable, in her opinion. So instead of answering back Gillian merely picked at her plate of fruit and rice, hoping it wouldn't give her any problems later—the restaurant was very nice, but the food had obviously touched _the outdoors_ at some point, and who knew what kind of contamination _that_ might spread.

            "Oh, come on," Cal chided, still entertained. "Isn't it interesting, sitting here and watching the people around us? Maybe I could do a series of street scenes, you know, with the kind of people who are passing by—look at that guy over there, isn't he just so _ordinary_? He's probably, I don't know, a _bus driver_ or something." It was the most ordinary profession Cal could come up with—something that wasn't needed within a compound at all.

            "Do you want me to pose nude in the middle of the street?" Gillian asked, a bit more sharply than she'd meant.

            Fortunately he smirked again. "I think that would take away from the _ordinary_ aspect," he countered, which she supposed was a compliment. After a moment of looking around again he shrugged, his enthusiasm ebbing as quickly as it had flowed. "Oliver says _ordinary_ doesn't sell," he remarked, which Gillian had been thinking but wasn't about to say. "Rich people only want to look at other rich people, or at least beautiful people in rich settings. And poor people don't want to look at other poor people, either." He gazed at her speculatively and she didn't interrupt, knowing he was turning over another new idea. "Maybe, I could cover you in _dirt_ , so you'd be beautiful, but also kind of impoverished-looking."

            Well, that wasn't as bad as Gillian had been imagining. Not as bad as the pose-nude-with-zoo-animals series, for example. "Could I be covered in _chocolate_ instead, and we could just _say_ it was dirt?" she countered hopefully. "Real dirt would be awfully…" She trailed off.

            "Dirty?" he guessed dryly.

            "I wouldn't want to pick up a _bug_ from it," she added, sending another insect flying from the table with a vicious flick of her fingers.

            "For you, I would find the _cleanest_ dirt possible," he vowed, mock-serious. Well, chocolate wouldn't be so bad, Gillian thought—if he was even serious about the idea. Cal had a lot of ideas, and most of them he simply didn't have the time to follow up on. He took one more bite of his chicken sandwich then dropped the rest back onto the plate with finality. "You done? Come on, we'll see if the gallery's open yet." He pulled out his wallet and signaled for the waiter to bring him the check.

            Gillian had never lived on the streets, and she had never hung out in the slave quarters. She also wasn't nearly as cynical as Cal could be. But for some reason, her survival instincts still tended to be sharper than his. Perhaps it was due to the number of brain cells he'd killed with absinthe over the years. So when the commotion went up from the dirty street children who had been steadily creeping closer to the fence that separated the diners from the street, Cal ignorantly turned to look at them, cash still in hand. Gillian, in contrast, immediately grabbed both her designer purse _and_ his wallet, right before a particularly grimy-looking creature who had snuck up the other side could pounce on them. Seeing that the monetary quarry was being defended, the child went for the secondary goal and snatched up the remainder of Cal's sandwich in one hand and a scoop of Gillian's meal in the other. Then he or she—it was impossible to tell through the rags—squeezed lithely through the iron fence and scrambled away before the nearest waiter could even react.

            "Huh," Cal understated, as the offended patrons began squawking all around them. He looked over at Gillian. "Good reflexes. Are you alright?"

            "Lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas," she muttered in response, handing him back his wallet. As far as she was concerned, such indignities were only to be expected when one dined in such a barbaric manner.

            The manager hurried over, nearly tripping over himself with apologies. Gillian tried to deal with him politely and assure him that getting their meal for free would completely satisfy them, no need to get the authorities involved. Or the press. Cal was busy picking something up off the ground and examining it, something colorful but filthy that one of the urchins must have dropped.

            The manager was used to a high level of clientele in his establishment and, frankly, was more interested in talking to the artist than to his muse. "Oh, that's one of those dreadful pamphlets the street people litter about," he commented with distaste, inserting himself into Cal's space. "I can take that for you, sir—"

            Cal pulled it away from him. "No, thanks. I'm behind on my Foxboot adventures," he deadpanned, opening the thin booklet to the middle. Gillian suggested the man take away their soiled dishes instead. "Look at this, this is a _real_ street mix," Cal went on with enthusiasm, leafing through the rough pages. "Not like the ones you can find at the libraries. This is raw subversion right here."

            Gillian didn't quite roll her eyes, but she wanted to. "Maybe you should put it down and go wash your hands," she suggested in what she hoped was a helpful tone of voice.

            Cal wasn't listening, of course. Instead he was turning the pages of the richly-illustrated little book and snickering to himself. "Look at that, oh my G-d, they've got Angela Waverly in here as some kind of superpowered villain who's half orangutan!"

            "What's the other half?" Gillian asked, without interest.

            "Well, Angela Waverly," Cal admitted, forcing the open book into Gillian's line of sight. "I mean, you've got to be able to _tell_ it's her, after all, without relying on the text. A lot of the street population are nearly illiterate, you know."

            "Hmm. It _is_ very… evocative, isn't it?" Gillian decided slowly, using her napkin to turn the page. "The symbolism in these drawings is more sophisticated than I would have imagined."

            "Here, look at the perspective on this one," Cal insisted, scooting closer so they could both see. "Even with this crude level of printing, you could melt right into those shadows."

            "Yet somehow," Gillian noticed dryly, "the heroine _and_ the Minister of Health and Housing both have enormous breasts. What does that symbolize, do you think?"

            "Sex sells," Cal reminded her succinctly, flipping through the rest of the book. He would have it finished in a moment and then, Gillian hoped, they could finally leave. They still had to stop by the gallery to see the setup for Cal's work—and probably have it all rearranged to suit him better—and then she hoped they could do a little shopping before it got dark. Gillian intended to be safely back in their hotel suite well before the sun began to set on the unfamiliar city. The street children had completely disappeared from sight by now, no doubt fearing that the authorities _would_ be called in, but the brief encounter had unsettled Gillian more than she wanted to admit. That kind of thing just didn't happen in the carefully controlled world of the compound, of course. She recognized the necessity of accompanying Cal on this gallery tour, even if _he_ hadn't at first, but that didn't mean she actually _enjoyed_ being away from her quiet, safe, well-known surroundings.

            Instead, when she glanced back up at Cal to check on him, she found him staring pensively at one of the pages. The expression on his face was an even more concentrated version of the usual 'new idea' indicator—the kind of determined, imaginative look that meant he was about to suggest posing naked with zoo animals, or something equally ill-advised. “Shall we look for a taxi?” Gillian suggested with a bit of desperation. “To go to the gallery?”

            He didn’t seem to have heard her. “Look at this page,” he said, slapping the booklet back down in front of her. It was the last page of the comic, with six panels depicting various scenes that made even less sense to Gillian than the rest of the nonsensical story.

            Then she noticed something else. “These were all drawn by different people,” she observed, looking at the panels more closely (without touching them, of course).

            “Exactly,” Cal agreed. “That’s the nellie page. Up-and-coming artists get one panel in the back of the issue to draw whatever they want and show their stuff. See any that you like?”

            His tone made it clear _he_ had seen one that _he_ liked, so Gillian gazed at the page thoughtfully, looking for the “best” one according to Cal’s tastes. “This one,” she decided, hovering her finger above the middle right panel. His nod let her know they were in agreement. “What’s the signature? Loker? I guess that’s the artist’s name.”

            Cal took the booklet back and stared hard at the panel in question. “It’s very good,” he decided after a moment. He was not making an idle comment. He was planning something. Something Gillian felt she would not like. Before she could think of a tactful way to question him, he stood. “Come on, let’s grab a taxi,” he said abruptly, staring more at the comic book than where he was going through the restaurant.


End file.
